Encounters
by Hex Hawk
Summary: Everyone knows the stories of the Survivors of the Green Flu - but what about those survivors not associated with the well-known groups? {Collection of stories I've written. Rated "M" for Violence and Swearing}
1. Abandoned

**It's been a long time since I posted _anything_, so it seems fitting that my first return to FanFiction will be a small series of short stories based off of Left 4 Dead. Although the first story was written last year (and has been edited from the original posting, as it was the 'story' description for a piece of art I drew for several people), these are relatively up-to-date with my current writing abilities - both from expanding my skills a little bit, and also from having a little bit of spare time.**

**These stories aren't in any particular order, and don't involve any particular characters (hence the use of simple pronouns and other identifiers). In the true spirit of FanFiction, these are essentially my own 'characters' flung into a world with which they aren't familiar.**

**Constructive criticism is welcome, but rude comments may be ignored.**

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His breath came in ragged gasps. He had been pushing his lungs, his body, beyond their limits, and was now paying the price. Blisters were developing on his feet; he could feel them rubbing up against his worn-out sneakers. Thankfully, though, while the rest of his body bore small scratches and bruises, his shooting hand had developed tough calluses to make it easier.

Still, he needed a break.

With no safe room in sight, his best bet was to just lean against the nearest alley wall - after quickly and quietly killing off any stragglers from the horde - and pray that no wandering groups of Infected would find him. He needed just five minutes to rest up and start again, but he knew he wouldn't be truly safe until he found the safe room.

There was only one Infected in the alley, which he easily dispatched with his katana (found discarded in the street, its last owner long gone). It had been leaning up against the wall, retching, although no amount of purging could clear this disease up. The survivor shuddered. He and his group had been immune, for sure. After all, he and the other guys had been splattered and sprayed with gore and organs; surely he would have been infected if this disease was so contagious?

As he leaned up against the wall (careful to avoid the smeared vomit), his mind began to wander. He were the last one left of his team. They had all died on the other side of the city, in an area swamped with the victims of the Green Flu. Uneasily, he realized that they would have still been with him, at least for protection purposes, if he hadn't suggested going through that area. He could still hear their screams of pain as the monsters ripped into them, spilling their blood, until the far-off call of one of the more dangerous ones had sent him scurrying away. His eyes had locked with a female member of the party; he felt sick with fear remembering her hate-filled gaze, defiant to him even as her breath left her body. She couldn't blame him; he reasoned. It wasn't his fault that a group of eight Survivors had taken in a jumpy straggler like him.

Five minutes were up.

Groaning at the effort, he managed to push himself off of the wall, again avoiding the puddles and the decapitated "zombie", and got ready to get back on the main road. There was only one safe room left between him and the evacuation point, and the room was only a few blocks away. A chance to restock, rest, and regain lost energy.

A low growl made him stop, steps away from the road.

Turning away from the graffiti-stained walls, he peered cautiously down the main road. Empty. There was no living - or Infected - soul present, nothing at all that could have made that noise. He let out a nervous, but still mostly quiet, chuckle. Surely he was being paranoid?

Another call from the distance, but getting closer. In fact, this one, a high-pitched gurgling wail, was much different than the guttural growl. And, listening closely, the sounds of insane laughter, gurgling, bull-like grunting, and coughing could be heard. A loud sobbing and then thunderous roars broke out, chilling his blood to ice.

"Fuck," he whispered.

Not only was this road not empty, a Horde was approaching.

Not a normal horde.

"Shit, shit, shit..." he muttered, reaching for the gun strapped to his back.

Too late.

As he watched, a horde of the most dangerous Infected appeared through a mist, covering the area for the next few blocks.

In front, a twitching and giggling creature - a Jockey, he vaguely thought - barely stayed on its feet as the mini-Horde approached. Its high-pitched cackling and wheezing gave the impression that it was insane; the darting movements showed that also. Its eyes never seemed to focus on one thing, and it looked relatively torn up, even for an Infected.

Standing behind it was a huge, heavily mutated… thing - how else could it be described? It bore the unmistakable marks of a creature who had charged too far, smashing in its face and skull, with bruises and callouses covering its body. While one arm bulged, calloused and powerful, the other hung limp and useless from the shoulder.

The one that had first alerted him stalked at the front. Although he couldn't make out facial features, an aggressively snarling jaw, dripping with blood, jutted out from beneath a dirty hood. It crawled like an animal, and acted like one too, constantly snapping when the others got too close. Although the hind legs were bunched and full of muscle, it had made no effort to jump yet.

Just behind him stood a wheezing woman with a distorted neck and jaw. Acid bubbled between its lips, and huge open wounds on the chest proved that this creature's skin was not immune to its own poison. The sagging skin made his stomach roll, especially the sight of this creature's own distended belly.

Next to it stomped a creature straight out of anyone's nightmares. Its tongue was the least horrifying part of this mutated beast, hanging past a swollen jaw, but it became much less humorous once he remembered what was attached to it. Bigger than an average Tank, this Infected of solid muscle grunted angrily as the rest of the Infected blocked its way to the survivor. Surprisingly, despite its rage, it made no effort to rip through the others like rag dolls to get to him.

Another chilling sob broke out, directing his attention to the front again. Generally, these things stayed seated on the ground, covering their ugly faces with even uglier claws - at least at night, to his knowledge. Now, even in the heavy darkness, she stalked with the rest of them, her claws glinting. Even though the distressed cries urged the survivor to help her, he knew there would be no point. There was no reasoning with an Infected.

Bloating and groaning next to her stood a Boomer. It walked forward ungracefully, hindered by the massive, bloated gut sticking out in front of it. The survivor could practically hear the huge organ spewing out more bile into its system; if he weren't careful, that same stuff would end up on him. Although huge boils covered parts of his arms and face, obscuring his identity, the survivor could tell he had once been an employee of a fast food chain by the remnants of his uniform.

Finally, but not least, at the end of the line limped a strange creature. A long, blood-colored tongue hung out of its mouth - as well as its neck. A total of five tongues, actually, writhed like a grisly halo around the monster's head, making his head spin with the image. The side of the Smoker's body leaning awkwardly up into the air was covered in unsightly boils, which occasionally burst. A noxious billow of smoke would puff out each time.

He ducked his head away, but it was too late. They had seen him.

And a sneaking suspicion was beginning to enter his mind. They all looked so familiar...

"Fuck..."

His former team, the one he had watched get ripped to shreds, hadn't died. Nor had they been truthful when they said they were immune.

As the first excited screeches of the Hunter began to fill the air, he wished he hadn't left his team for dead.


	2. The Spitter

It had been quite a few weeks since the start of the Green Flu (more commonly known by the colloquialism "the Infection"), and yet she still didn't feel comfortable traversing this new, terrifying world. While a lot of the original Infected had succumbed to the strange virus, and seemed to be a little sparse in the rural areas, more and more became afflicted with it, and the strangely mutated Infected seemed to get more numerous by the day. They severely hampered her ability to survive, since they seemed to be attracted to any activity by a survivor with a vengeance. Even if that something was as simple as gathering a can of beans to stave off starvation.

These thoughts stuck in her head as she rounded the corner, pistol raised in case she ran into one of those new "Special" Infected. After all, some of the graffiti she had seen scribbled on the wall a little way back (this, too, was becoming sparse the longer the Infection lasted) warned of several new atrocious monsters, further proving the horrifying reality that this virus _quickly_ mutated. One that spat acid, one that pounded you into a pulp, and one that could even control your movements...

She quickly snuck into a nearby alleyway, successfully avoiding the notice of two "common" Infected, both of which were too busy stumbling around (clutching their heads and vomiting) to notice her almost-silent escape. Her new hiding spot, however, wasn't silent at all - a high-pitched gurgling burble seemed to be coming from around the corner.

She couldn't avoid them forever, she supposed. It was nice to be able to take a short breather, though.

Carefully readying her melee weapon - a sturdy baseball bat, in this case - she got ready for a relatively quick and quiet take down. There was no way to prepare her for what lay around the corner.

_She_ (for it was undoubtedly a female Infected) was instantly identifiable as a Special Infected. The female survivor almost felt heartbroken upon looking at her swollen and slightly distended stomach, because that meant she had probably succumbed to her illness while pregnant... On second thought, though, that didn't seem to be the case. Her neck would have been comically long, if it weren't for the fact that it connected to a decaying jaw, which was oozing what looked like acid and blood. A lot of the surrounding tissue on her face - including her lips and some of her cheeks - had been clearly eaten through by the acid (_"Or maybe from getting bitten?"_ the survivor thought), and painful-looking sores on her chest confirmed the girl's original suspicion. This must be the one that spat out acid on unsuspecting survivors.

The survivor's thoughts were again interrupted when she stopped gurgling to let out a high-pitched wail. Evidently, she had finally noticed the human's present. Before she could ready her spitting attack, the bat was at the ready. The Survivor wasn't going to be taken down by _any_ Infected without a fight.


	3. The Witch

It had only been a week since the outbreak called the Green Flu had taken everybody by surprise. After the first few initial cases, it seemed to spread quickly, causing panic and mayhem in its wake - even after the government disease control team, CEDA, tried to ease the panic it had caused. The symptoms seemed similar enough to the flu, at least at first. I had noticed my friends and coworkers coming down with coughing, then uncontrollable vomiting, then a complete loss of rationality within just a few short days. CEDA warned that the final stages of the disease would cause a breakdown of all higher mental functions, but to not let this cause alarm. After all, they were working on a cure.

I snorted to myself. I seemed to be immune, at least after all the exposure I had been through, but no one working at CEDA seemed to be lucky enough. I hadn't heard from them - or any other kind of news, if I can be truly honest - for a while.

To make matters worse, some new variations ("mutations," as the most recent information put out by CEDA a few days seemed to imply) of the Infected were popping up. Initially, I hadn't been alone, but my traveling companion - and only friend that I knew was still alive after all of this - had recently been taken down by a strange member of the Infected, one that wore a drab hoody and was a little more active than the already 'trigger-happy' "normal" variety that I thought was the _only_ kind out there (not that any of them could use guns, but it is just an expression). It had only taken a couple seconds to rip into him, and I had barely managed to kill it and escape with your life myself. My friend... was not so lucky.

Either way, I now moved much more cautiously through the streets, careful to not alert anything to my presence. I were still learning how to use your weapon, and to be honest learning how to use _anything_ I could find to be used as a weapon. I really didn't truly want to hurt these people, but it seemed like this was the apocalypse... with no end in sight.

My own mournful thoughts seemed to be reflected in a strange crying noise! Wait, no - that _was_ someone crying! Were they insane? I cursed to myself under your breath. Whoever it was, they were going to get killed. Sound attracted the Infected, and the heartbroken wailing from this person was only going to drive them to their location faster. Even a car alarm, an opening door, or sometimes even a talking voice would send them into an uncontrollable rage, and this person's sobs were practically bouncing off of the walls.

But... I paused in your walking. Whoever it was sounded just so morose, even for someone who was in this situation. If I were really honest with myself, I would probably cry like this too if I wasn't already aware of the "no noise" rule. When I listened closer, I could obviously tell it was a woman, possibly even just a girl, and it was likely that she was all alone now in this world, just like _me_. I couldn't help but feel like I needed to help her out, or at least find the source of the crying.

It didn't take me too long to pinpoint the source of the loud sobs, despite the difficulty in pinpointing _exactly_ where the sound came from, but what really set alarm bells ringing in my head was the lack of Infected in this immediate area. After all, this was the absolute loudest noise in the area. While I appreciated the lack of sick people, I was also suspicious of the lack of a large horde. A noise like this should _really_ be attracting Infected in the area.

The thought, _"Maybe it's scaring them away,"_ briefly entered my mind before you finally spotted the source of the crying.

An emaciated girl sat oddly on the floor, hunched over in an almost grotesque position. She was rocking, the sobs heaving from her chest seeming to help fuel her movements. Her legs were positioned haphazardly around her body, looking almost painful. Her torn clothes definitely looked like evidence of an Infected attack, and her ashy pale skin and blood-covered limbs seemed to imply that as well. Even with all of that, I were almost still tempted to help her, until I spotted the wickedly sharp claws on the ends of her fingers. Elongated claws that still seemed to be soaked with the blood of the last person she suckered to her location.

Quickly, yet quietly, I moved away from her location. The last thing I ever saw of this girl were a pair of glowing orange eyes staring in my direction, and a low growl escaping from clenched teeth. Luckily, while I were spooked by her appearance, she wasn't actually too startled by mine. The low warning groans had faded from my ears (but not my memory), and it wasn't long before the piercing wails of the Witch started up again, attempting to lure the next survivor into her trap.


End file.
